Election News and Blues

Or should the headline be reversed—blues and news? Bill Kristol told me yesterday an alarming fact about how dispirited the Republican base is with the whole primary scene (Metro Mitt versus Rural Rick, as Henry Olsen puts it): when Fox News Special Report, their premier news show, leads the top of the show with the Republican nominating contest, viewership plunges. When they lead with anything else—Iran, the latest Obama perfidy, Rush’s Flukiness, whatever—viewership holds up steady. If the Fox News audience is sick and/or bored with the nominating contest, imagine how non-political and non-newsy folks must feel.

But then what to make of the Rasmussen poll out yesterday showing Romney with a five point lead over Obama? Rasmussen is often criticized, but his polls are usually close to the mark.

And is it a mere coincidence that, after the entire Fluke affair (which was likely not the fluke it appeared—talk about “battle space preparation”), the New York Times leads this morning with the dog bites man story that the Obama campaign is planning to target women for votes.

Meanwhile, I heard a very, very very prominent person predict this morning, in an off-the-record meeting (so I can’t tell you who, but trust me it’s a name everyone knows well), that Obama would dump Biden for Hillary on the ticket.